What to Think About When Making Your College Choice

Making Your College Decision

It all started at the library, where we did some more research on each of my daughter's college options....

The main decision to be made was between a large state college, and a smaller state college, both within commuting distance of our home.  Both had a large choice of majors. But one of them seemed to fit my teen, to the tee.  That was the smaller one, as it offered a smaller freshman class, and I thought that might be important for social reasons. 

 first college visit

But, at the same time, my teen was enticed by the excitement of the larger college, which had an especially good reputation, and a student size of more than 60,000.  She knew that some of her friends would be going there, and she liked the architecture and the plaza on the gorgeous large campus.

My main concern was choosing a college that best fit my teen's social needs.

My daughter was used to working in small groups, and did well with those, finding her way, as she has in Youth and Government. How could that work out at the larger state college?

So, together, we researched the two colleges again, first at the library, then at home, with the help of our cat.

First, we looked at what each college offered for incoming freshmen...

Freshman Social Environment 

The smaller option offered freshmen seminars, where the students would work together in small groups. This would give my daughter plenty of opportunity to get to know her classmates. 

And she has thrived in this kind of environment!  Small groups, that's just like her Youth and Government!  The seminars would last all year, giving them time to build friendships, and learn together.

The larger college did not have freshmen seminars, but did have a first quarter freshman into class, and nice raft trip for incoming freshmen, as a way to get to know each other.  But after that, they could be in some large lecture halls with over 700 students!

Then we compared the two on the basis of support offered to the students.

 Academic Support

This is what we found.....The larger one did have tutoring on campus, but was known to have a very competitive academic environment.  The smaller one had way more tutoring options available, with easy access to the professors.  

The larger one had many more students per professor, and the teens would usually be dealing with TA's instead of their professors.  Yet, the class size was ideal at the smaller college, about 30 students in each class, compared to 100-600 per class.  Both colleges had solid reputations.

We talked about these two issues together, and with my husband at dinner all week.  My teen soon realized that having a smaller, more supportive environment was more important to her than the status of going to the larger college.  Soon a decision was reached.  And I am so happy that she chose the more supportive environment at the smaller college.

So Thursday, we got out the formal papers, and my teen prepared them for mailing.  She accepted the scholarship offer at the smaller college, and sent in her college acceptance papers!

And she was thrilled!

I am so happy for her, excited, relieved to have the decision made, and a little sad at the same time! I decided that, if my daughter was really going to college, my family needed a road trip!  So, on Saturday, and we all headed out, of course with our cameras!  Nice, family time was just the ticket, especially for my husband and I!

 Country roads always calm me.  And the mountain, Mt. Rainer, was out...

 ......plus we saw a field of daffodils, still blooming this late in their season!

 Then we saw this sign....it was funny, as it was no where near the daffodils!

 We stopped and bought some strawberry plants...

Then we found a small town, near the mountain, named Orting...
and a nice park in the middle of town, where my college student-to-be, decided to pose for a picture in front of the merry-go-round...

 Big decisions call for big playground equipment, don't you think?

I enjoyed the road trip so much, and we plan to go back there next year, to see the daffodils in April, with our favorite college freshman, (oh, my!)....and have fried chicken again, at this little cafe...

Homeschooling High School with College in Mind - 2nd edition, 

Amazon 

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, highschool, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She offers homeschool help through messages at BJ's Consulting,  and has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 

No spam ever.  
Just encouragement for your homeschool in your inbox. 


Copyright 2020 @ BJ's Homeschool
All Rights Reserved

Frugal Resources for High School Homeschool Transcripts

Summary:  Sharing frugal ways to get help in creating your teen's homeschool transcripts.  Note - This post may included affiliate links to products that we love and have used or would use in our  own homeschool. Please see my disclosure policy.


Have your begun making your teen's transcripts, and found it to be a little daunting?  

I did.  

Compiling all the necessary information, and knowing what to put where, can be overwhelming, to say the least. 

And who doesn't want a little help for this important task, anyway?

Frugal Resources for Transcripts

1.  HSLDA'S Fast Transcripts 

Wondering what to put where, for your teen's transcripts?  Fast Transcripts does this for you.  I found it very helpful to have this assistance when I did my daughter's transcripts.  And they help with the record keeping too, so you can put each of your teen's courses in, just one at a time, if you like.

"Fast Transcripts enables you to track your high schooler's courses via online record keeping, and then helps you produce an official transcript with an auto-calculation feature for determining yearly and cumulative GPAs.  

You even have the option of having your final transcript printed on watermark protected, academic record stock!  Take the worry out of creating, updating, storing and sending your student's transcripts."  .....HSLDA

2. Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd edition - Free to Read on Prime

Amazon

This book is an easy-to-read guide to high school for homeschoolers,  including:

- A transcript form to print out
- Step by step instructions for filling in the transcript form
- A sample transcript

c

Recommended by: Lessa Scherrer, certified college counselor from College Inside Track:

"Betsy has a wealth of understanding and knowledge to share with the parents of college bound homeschoolers. This book is a must-read for parents considering homeschooling high school and for parents in the thick of the application process."

With 12 high school and college planning printables.  Just fill them in!  All free downloads.

The high school and college planning forms include:

College Entrance Requirements Form

Overall High School Plan

Curriculum Planning Sheet

High School Credit Record Form

Transcript Form

Activities and Awards Form

Homemade Course Form

Writing the College Essay Form

Course Descriptions Record Keeping Form

Reference Letter Request Form

PE Record Form

For more information, click here - Frugal College Prep for Homeschoolers 

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is a Christian mom to her now college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school, 
college, gifted/2e and wrote -Homeschooling High School with College in Mind, 2nd Edition,   She has had some of her articles picked up by the Huffington Post.

Want to stay in touch?

Subscribe, Pinterest, Facebook 
No spam ever. 
Just encouragement for your homeschool 
in your inbox.

Copyright @ BJ's Homeschool 2024

All Rights Reserved

Learning Sign Language is FUN!

Are you looking for some easy to do indoor

activities for summer, when it's raining or just too

hot to play outside?  

Learning sign language turned out to be not only a fun 

summer time activity for us, it also enhanced the early

learning that my daughter had done, that year. 

As an OT, and a homeschooler, I get excited about the 

benefits of signing....It is a great way to enhance

academic early learning because it is literally hands-on.  

It gives excellent sensory feedback to young learners,

who may learn best through tactile channels.


For kids who have sensory or attentional issues, sign 

language can be a great way to reinforce their

academics.


8 Benefits of Learning Sign Language  

1.  Learning the alphabet in sign 

language, is a great way for kinesthetic 

learners to master the ABC's.

2.  Learning number signs enhances your 

math program, and makes counting more fun.

from You Can Learn Sign Language

3.  Learning signs helps build memory skills.

4.  Signing is fun!  It can be a nice break from your 

regular school work, and build confidence, as your 

kids learn a new sign, and share it with others.

5.  Kids can learn how grammar works, by learning how

to put together words in ASL, and that they follow

a different order than that of English.

6.   Learning sign helps to build fine motor 

coordination for handwriting.

7.  Sign language can help develop visual spatial skills that 

are important for learning to read.

8. Signs can be used to help teach your kids

about emotions, as they learn the signs for their feelings.

- You Can Learn Sign Language Book -

This was just the ticket for us.  It is written by experts in the field of deafness and American Sign Language (ASL), which is the true language of the deaf.  

To read more about this little book from Scholastic, click here.


- Sign Language Flash Cards -


Another resource that we liked was a frugal set of 

flashcards ,called Sign Language Flash Cards from

Carson-Deliosa.  

from Sign Language Flash Cards

 There are very simple signs that 

can be used with your young toddler, to help with 

communication, such as....the sign for milk, or the 

sign for juice.   For more information on this 

resource, click here.

Sign language not only added a lot to our 

summer days, it also gave my daughter great practice 

 in small motor and visual processing skills.   

Have a fun summer and enjoy signing with 

your family! 

Happy Homeschooling,

Betsy

Betsy blogs at BJ's Homeschool, where she writes about high school, college, and all the fun of homeschooling the early years, too.  As a veteran homeschooler, Betsy offers homeschool help to families.

Homeschool Geography with Stamp Collecting for Kids - A Simple Unit Study

Today, I'd like to share with you a simple and fun stamp activity and how we added in just a touch of geography and writing along the way. 

STAMP COLLECTING 

 UNIT STUDY

First let's start with some frugal and free resources for stamp collecting. 

1.  Resources and How To's

Where to Get Stamps:

-Watch the mail, ask relatives to collect them, or even ask at homeschool groups for families to save them for you.

-Get a pen pal for your child, and ask them to collect stamps for you.

- Get a stamp catalog for free at the Mystic Stamp Company.  

- Get Free Album Pages, from the Philatelic Society here, such as "A Stamp for Every Country", from the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and 100's more!

-The International Society for World Wide Stamp Collectors  has a program where they offer free stamps for kids up to age 17. 

Send requests, along with your stamped self address envelope, asking for free stamps to: ISWSC Internet Offer

Easy Ways to Store Your Stamps

To store your collection, you could use a shoebox, drawer, or a notebook.  We just used a notebook.  

Then we got some heavy writing paper from the drug store, but you could get official stamp paper, if you want from the American Philatelic Society - for kids.

Then, to put them onto the pages, we just used glue, and that worked for us.  

Or put them in the little envelopes on the official stamp pages, available from the American Philatelic Society - for kids. 

To preserve the stamps, just take the stamps off the paper by laying them in a shallow dish of water for a while and then peeling them of with tweezers. 

2.  Geography Stamp Activities 

Here's some of the simple things that we have done for stamp geography:

• Look up where the stamps come from.  
• Learn more about those places,  mark the places they came from on the map.  
• Find them on a globe.  
• Get a stamp from a foreign country, look up a recipe from that country, and have a stamp/collecting geography supper.  

My daughter collected stamps from the US and from foreign countries, but especially from China, as that is her birth country. 

3. Stamp Writing Activities

Here's some simple "stamp writing" ideas:

• Make a journal, out of a simple paper tablet.  
• Write a bit about any new stamps.  
• If your kiddos are just learning to write, they could color, then copy a few words into their journal about their stamp. 
• Record the country or state that the stamp came from.  
• For older kids, they might write a paragraph about the stamp's origin, or country, and still make time to color or draw a picture.

Finally, I'd like to share the benefits your kids can get from doing this activity....

4.  The Benefits of Stamp Collecting

Stamp Collecting can give your kids practice in the following skills: 

•  Organizational skills
• Direction following practice
• Visual perceptual skills
• Attention to detail 
• Concentration skills

And these are executive functioning skills. 

What would you add to this list?   

Thanks for stopping by BJ's Homeschool,

Betsy

Betsy is retired O.T, homeschool blogger, and most importantly is mom to her 2e college grad, whom she homeschooled through high school.  She blogs at BJ's Homeschool, about the early years, high school, college and 2e.  Pinterest,  Facebook 

Copyright @ BJ's Homeschool 2025
All rights reserved